Former Apple and Palm Exec Rubinstein Leaves HP

Jon Rubinstein, the former Apple Senior VP of the iPod division, has left his most current post at Hewlett-Packard, according toAllThingsD.

Mr. Rubinstein first joined Apple in 1997 after previously working with Steve Jobs at NeXT. He managed a number of hardware development roles before finally being tasked with creating the iPod, a division he led until his departure from the company in 2006.

After a brief retirement, Mr. Rubinstein joined Palm in 2007 and spearheaded the development of Palm’s iPhone competitor, the Pre, and iOS competitor, webOS.

Mr. Rubinstein stayed with the company following its acquisition by HP in 2010. After severe mismanagement by HP, Palm’s mobile devices and software were initially abandoned; webOS was later revived and made open source.

With much of what Mr. Rubinstein brought to HP now gone, his decision to leave was met with little surprise by the industry. AllThingsD’s sources state that he has been rarely seen at HP’s offices and that his future with the company has been the source of speculation since the latter half of 2011.

Mr. Rubinstein reportedly has no immediate plans and today’s departure does satisfy his 12-24 month commitment to stay with HP following the merger with Palm.

Not if Jobs bio is to be believed. According to that book, there is friction between Rubinstein and Ive. Further, Rubinstein was the douch who kept thwarting Apple’s iTunes DRM system to allow Palm devices to sync up to iTunes. Apple had to keep updating iTunes to lock Palm devices out. I am sure Apple’s management feels all warm and fuzzy about that.